I'm losing my religion

No, this is not a tribute to the band R.E.M., although it relates to profound stages of sleep we sometimes seem to be engaged in.
What happens is that I'm losing my faith in England as being one of the most secular countries in Europe -- well, close enough to Europe -- after watching the highly hypocritical Pope's speech in Westminster Hall. That while my faith in BP was slowly being rehabilitated.
Then I even lost a lot more of faith in BBC when its commentators praised the said speech.
The speech was nothing but a collection of generalised platitudes on the environment and dialogue, while polishing politicians' shoes that aren't used to shine as imperialistically as they did before.
The Holy See's only measure for the environment is to bring on more carbon dioxide emitting units to the planet, to live on such a state of misery that will justify and finance the existence of that very same See, while demographically annihilating other beliefs, disbeliefs or non-beliefs. Can't you see? 
As for dialogue, it lacks dual or even stereo qualities, apart from the one found in stereotype. So it's all mono, by God.
It was a speech of an institution that is fading away in a long agony, trying to get back to its feet by grabbing supporters to its cause. Hopefully it's similar to the dying man's last moments of lucidity. But I know better. Give us a good worldwide crisis and the gods will spring back to life, just as demons would.
As for the speech claims on the need of their moral code, nothing comes out of nothing. And neuroscience is uncovering the moral codes we're born with. So the only thing that the Roman Catholic Church adds to this world is non-existent guilt and the deliverance of it -- as Dylan Moran's brilliant rants on Catholicism illustrate -- and a non-existent Heaven, so that Hell can be endured in here, so that some can piss on many peacefully. 
The subliminal message of the said speech to the politicians was: Support us and keep on driving the world the way you are, for we'll pacify for you the poor of spirit. Where's the rebel spirit of Jesus in that?  
The disappointment though is making me seriously think on unlearning English.
BBC English.
Länge leve Sweeeden!

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Written in Times New Roman, written in Times New Roman.

You must love a loop

“Write only about the things you love,” many said this in slightly different ways. They might be right. The love, or enthusiasm, one puts into one's work is contagious. But so is smallpox. What if one loves to write about the things one detests? Tricky.

“Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous,” writes Kurt Vonnegut. That reminds me of a very short lived love of mine, or perhaps just love for me, that ended up with her telling a few persons not to be my friends. Intoxicating stuff.

A friend once told me that I'm at my best when I write about animals. Of that kind other than chimps capable of self-referential loops, also called self-awareness.

You got it. Let's talk about loops, not love. Or why not about love-loops. That's pretty suggestive.

Douglas Hofstadter wrote I Am a Strange Loop, trying to answer the question of why some of what is alive is conscious, or self-aware. So I've no need to talk about loops; I'll just ask you to read his work. And that's a good thing about books: they can speak for you. What those books will put in your mouth is a never-ending story that I will not never-end here.

Back to the love-loops, J.S. Porter wrote Spirit Book Word. It's a lovely and loving personal story on how he thinks certain writers to have a word that defines them. But then again, Porter's wife, he writes, thinks he “falls in love too easily, much too easily.” He's a writer engaged in a love-loop, if I ever saw one.

Other love-loops that come to mind are Vonnegut's we need extended families pervasive concept throughout his work, and also Saramago's use your eyes to see. I'm talking about these two because I explored their works the most lately. If one could squeeze their body of work, those two droplets of blood in between quotation marks would drip onto the thirsty wooden floor of poetry. But I'm too prosaic at the moment, and I'm picturing a marble floor there instead. And that's a clinical remark.
  
But what I really need is a love-loop-hole to get out of here. Now imagine that if you please. 

Portugueses e portuguesas

«Portugueses e portuguesas,»

Do moderno movimento politicamente correcto, herdaram os políticos que se querem fazer saber igualitários a mania de começar os discursos como aqui se o começou. Mas, a meio desses monólogos, dizem, por exemplo, "os estudantes portugueses," esquecendo-se das estudantes portuguesas, e lá se foi o igualitarismo.  

Terão sido correctos os políticos portugueses? Da correcção das políticas portuguesas aqui não se fala.

A língua portuguesa, com as suas nuances grega e árabe, os seus galicismos e anglicismos, e outros sismos que qualquer língua sofreu ou sofrerá, diz-se latina ou românica porque, apesar de declarado defunto, o latim nela ainda late, e recomenda-se. Por conta da passagem dos tempos, da geografia, das migrações, o latim falado por estas terras ganhou um carácter próprio, entre outros factos, por ter perdido o género neutro. Hoje todos os substantivos aparentam repartir-se em género masculino ou feminino.

Mas será assim?

Uma nuvem não espera por um nuvem para se ir chover. Nem um carro é de orientação sexual rara por necessitar duma agulheta enfiada pelo gargalo do depósito abaixo se se quiser locomover. E é tanto assim que quando dizemos «a humanidade» não falamos apenas de gajas, nem quando dizemos «o Homem» nos estamos a referir exclusivamente aos descendentes machos de Adão, esse cabraão original.

Certo é que conceitos abstractos, como filosofia, política, linguística, economia, tendem a cair no género feminino. Mas nem isso é regra, como se vê nos substantivos sem substância «conceito» e «abstracto.»

Regra, sim, que parece ser comum à linguagem humana é a da economia. Talvez ela comece no produzirmos sons pelos mesmos órgãos que usamos para provar, mastigar, cheirar, e respirar. Pois se vamos pelos caminhos de Portugal a fazer campanha pelos «portugueses e portuguesas», então os accionistas e as accionistas, os sócios e as sócias, os proprietários e as proprietárias, os empresários e as empresárias, os técnicos de contas e as técnicas de conto, errados ou certas, todos juntos e todas juntas deverão evocar razões de economia para regressarmos a campos ou a campas mais neutros ou mais neutras. Caso contrário, imagine-se o dinheiro-tempo e dedo-tinta perdidos a emitir cartas, actas, contratos, ou  facturas comerciais de género duplicado.  

Outrossim, os portugueses são um povo constituído por mais do que um português e do que uma portuguesa, e a língua deles é constituída por uma miríade de palavras neutras, que apenas aparentemente são masculinas ou femininas. Todos eles e todas elas são «portugueses», e bastam-se assim.

* * *

Se aqui exagerei ou ofendi, não foi por má-educação. A minha mãe ainda fica embaraçada quando invectivo na sua presença. Foi apenas na tentativa de marcar este discurso na tua memória, pois ela guarda melhor as experiências ligadas a emoções negativas do que às neutras, a puta.

 

  

A Mushroom Letter

«A new global treaty banning cluster munitions has come into force. (...) "This is a triumph of humanitarian values over a cruel and unjust weapon," Thomas Nash, co-ordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), told the BBC.»

Is it that global a treaty? USA, China, and Russia, they didn't ratify it.

Right. But that's good news, however limited, from a civilian point of view. Especially for children, who are attracted to the colours and curious shapes of bomblets that failed to detonate and thus will be active for years.

What I'm aiming at here is Mr. Nash's above quoted declaration. Indeed, which weapon can have gentleness and fairness for attributes, as opposed to a "cruel and unjust" one? A trained killer-butterfly? A rocket BIC blue pen? A carnivorous plant sent by mail which will eventually and slowly devour the addressee?

It's been a few years since I'm expecting that an intoxicated generation gets to hold offices. By intoxicated I mean current or ex users of cocaine, LSD, marijuana, you name it. And that added to a schizophrenic mind-frame, necessary for one to deal with thousands of ongoing subjects. They are here.  

Mild forms of schizophrenia in human condition might not be the exception but rather the rule. Some confess it, just as Noam Chomsky did. Others, the most severe cases, won't.

Then let me exercise my own schizophrenia here, in a literary schizophrenic form known as poetry:

The fairest of weapons is just
Just about to blow their guts out
 Out there where our eyes won't reach
Rich enough to build a weapon so fair
So far an event that we'll need TV that
we won't mind for what taxes are used
to see slaughter on screen
Scream or turn down the volume.
 

A Birthday – The Aftermath

Maybe what I dislike the most about birthdays is the possessive my. I don't remember making any effort to obtain my birthday. I think I'd be much more keen on celebrating those, of mine and of others, if we'd just called it a birthday. Example: 'Is it a birthday today?' someone would ask on your birthday day. 'Yes, it is. Let's celebrate a birthday,' you'd reply. A party would then ensue.

I can't even celebrate my birthday properly. I'm sure half-of-me was one of those spermatozoa that, distracted with trying to understand what the fuss was all about, just followed the crowd or, rather, was pushed out of the comfy ball by those eager, energetic brothers. And then, still distracted, half-of-me bumped its relatively enormous head against the ovule, who in turn found it amusing, said, 'You're cute. Come here,'' and snatched  half-of-me inside, leaving all those other brothers out to wait and die, out to wait and die. That's how life begins.

 

 

Uma lágrima de Saramago

Toque-se agora toda a vuvuzela,
junte-se ao inferno os carrilhões de Mafra,
e bata-se as sacrossantas tampas de panela,
celebrando um ano novo por meio de um velho.

Enfim separou-se a tua Ibéria da Europa,
arrastada pelo oceano salgado fora
por um bando de estorninhos em desalinho,
à esquerda,
por um elefante amestrado e seu cornaca,
à direita,
e ao centro o cão Ardent ganindo, Caim, caim.

Hoje, e por tua conta,
se atirarmos pedra ao mar, flutua,
se riscarmos o chão, o risco perdura,
se construírmos passarola, de vontades voa,
e aprendemos a desmontar o cerco de Lisboa.

Neste ano da tua morte,
quem foi que nos disse, José,
que pai só se perde uma vez, Não sei,
Pois a tua ausência deixou-me objecto quase,
de lágrima-cão no olho. Hoje cega-se em branco.

 

 

Voodoozela

The plastic horn known as vuvuzela was promoted and sold in Portugal by an oil company, as part of a campaign to support the Portuguese soccer team in the World Cup 2010, in South Africa. That’s odd, an oil company promoting useless plastic things in the name of a nationalistic feeling.  

 

BP was brewing a similar marketing project for a while, but Mexico and the U.S.A. refused further engulfment. The English just replied that the company didn’t even stand for British Petroleum anymore— luckily, they later added off the record. Iraq was willing to embark on such a venture but the national team didn’t qualify for the World Cup.

 

To produce some sort of sound, very often a vocal one, seems to be a human necessity.  To keep such a sound going on during quiet times, I developed a snore that can keep many awake all night long. Loud sounds, however, are a juvenile need: “Here I am! Look at me!” It’s the gene pool showing off its colours. Pretty drab a thing, ain’t it?

 

I'm enjoying so much the sound of vuvuzelas that I’m wishing Portugal to lose all the matches so that no vuvuzelas are heard over here.  Due to the large number of Brazilians living in Portugal, I’m wishing their team not to be very successful either. Sorry about that.  

 

The silliest thing about blowing a vuvuzela is that one’s not supporting one’s team; everybody’s just adding up decibels to a sound capable of ruining any creativity that could be going on on the pitch. That’s probably why the opening matches of the World Cup were as poor as the people living around the magnificent stadiums.

 

The best thing about a vuvuzela is that pickpockets can operate without worrying about a third party’s alarm.

‘Sorry! What did you say?’

‘His hand is in your pocket!’

‘Yes, yes! In the end I prefer soccer to cricket too! VUUUUUUUUUUUUU!’

 

To play a vuvuzela, one needs to set the lips as if producing the sound “brrrrr.” That’s pretty much the same as releasing the old fart *, which in turn is a very good excuse for me to stick a vuvuzela up its user’s ass—way too violent a thing, some would argue. I must disagree.  The vuvuzela’s sound and its usage are extremely invasive too, to the point of being a health issue, as it might cause hearing loss, or spread viruses more efficiently than by coughing. 

 

The vuvuzela then should be blown indoors only. And its tube should have a semi-circular shape, ending close to the user’s ears. Blowing a vuvuzela would be the same as blowing one’s brains out. And that’s voodoo to me. 

 

 

__________

 

* If you think that “releasing the old fart” is an ambiguous phrase, that means you don’t respect enough the elder citizens.

 

 

A Miracle at Fátima - chapter 1

A Miracle at Fátima

a sceptic approach to a belief

 

 

I. The chosen three

The little shepherds of Fátima, Portugal, also known as the three little shepherds, were the ten year old Lúcia, her cousin, the nine year old Francisco, and his sister, Jacinta, of seven wise years of age. They were chosen to witness the words of Mary, who by then was more than nineteen hundred years old. No one seems to care, but the little three were used as child labour. Luckily, Francisco died one year later, a victim of the 1918 Spanish Flu, having to work no more, and the same happened to Jacinta, two years after her older brother. Lúcia outlived them but also luckily she didn’t have to work hard for a living anymore, having entered a convent.

 

II. Getting Mary out of the cove

In 1917, Our Lady (of Fátima) appeared to the chosen three in Cova da Iria. Why then is not Our Lady associated with that location instead? It doesn’t sound as good as the nearby town of Fátima, and Cova means cove. Mary descending from heaven to appear in a cove, no matter which one, just doesn’t sound quite right. She must have had the same thoughts as she decided to reveal herself to the three little shepherds floating over a quercus ilex, a type of evergreen oak tree native to the Mediterranean region. This species of oak is considered to be an alien invader in the U.K., damaging the local biodiversity. I don’t believe that fact to be a coincidence—it obviously is a divine curse on the Church of England. That’s one of the least known aspects of the Miracle and you must thank me for the insight. Yet, not fully sure if the floating trick would be enough to put aside any idea of associating her with the Cova, Mary told the little ones that she was the Lady of the Rosary. That was during her sixth apparition, according to what Lúcia wrote in 1937, twenty years after the holy visits. Thank God Lúcia didn't forget to mention it.  

 

III. Fátima? Isn’t that the daughter of Muhammad, the prophet?

Yes, Fatimah is the daughter of Muhammad. And she’s worshiped. However, Mary is recognized to be the mother of Jesus, and she’s worshiped too, as the Qur’an shows us (Surah 3, verses 42-45). Thus none of them was offended by the association. Only I was, for Our Lady specifically said she was of the Rosary, not of Fátima—and I’m the one who’s supposed to be an unbeliever. Pearls and Pigs.

 

IV. Cultural background

In the early 20^th century, 70% of the Portuguese population was analphabetic. That hasn’t changed much since. The only difference is that the majority of the Portuguese now can read, but they don’t. I read a little bit, yes—thanks for asking.

 

Apart from their working parents and family, it was from the local priest that the children in rural areas derived their knowledge of the world, occasionally that of adult male anatomy.

The local priest was the source of news, normally being the only one who could read for miles around, and had the perfect job to share... the filtered version of what he read.  That’s a very powerful position the local priests held. In some remote regions in Portugal they still do, telling the people whom they’re supposed to vote for. My mother’s from a rural background also. She went to confession only once in her life. The first question the priest asked her was if any lad had played with her vagina already.

 

V. for Visitors

But Mary wasn’t the only one who showed up to pay her respects to the devout three. Kept a secret until 1937, Lúcia revealed that they were visited by an angel on three occasions in 1916, one year before Mary made her first appearance. That's an impressive divine social network those little three had going on there. 

 

The angel said to be the Angel of Peace at first, and on the second coming he said to be also the Angel of Portugal, its guardian angel. Now, this means that the inhabitants of Heaven have geo-political concerns. And if there’s an Angel of Portugal then surely there's one for each country too, and I dare reasoning that each must have their own specific quality, just as the Angel of Portugal has. I wonder which country has the Angel of Flu for a guardian angel. The hidden and divine message: behind these nationalistic angels seems to be that no country should annex other countries, for risk of leaving some angels out of work, and that no country should ever be split into more countries, for that will require some more creation out of God, as angels cannot reproduce... at least not among themselves. And we're talking about 1916. Thinking of world history since, it’s obvious that no one paid attention to these unclear revelations.

 

But, wait; there were more visitors—or it was the same angel, but just in a recon mission, not talking to anyone. One year before, in 1915, a figure appeared to Lúcia, who was in the company of three other little shepherdesses. Again, surprisingly, that entity appeared for three times. That too was only revealed in 1937. Lúcia wrote that they saw, floating above the bushes, “something resembling a cloud, whiter than snow, somewhat transparent, with a human shape.” I’d call it a funnily shaped whisp of mist, but, hey, I’m not eight years old nor my base stories are all drawn from one book.

 

 

(To be continued)

 

 

Tim Minchin's poem "Storm"

An animated movie based on this poem is on the works.

http://www.stormmovie.net/ 

They're accepting donations. Maybe you've some (s)quids you can contribute with. 

A tribute to Benedictus

     The Pope is visiting Portugal for the next couple of days. Tomorrow he’ll visit Fátima, a town where the Virgin Mary was sighted and heard by three infants, three little shepherds. Any narration of that miracle should start by, “Once upon a time.” After all, believing in what three children said is only a slightly more modern version of fables where the animals are able to speak, let alone a long dead virgin who was also able to conceive yet preserving her sexual status. But today the Pope is visiting Lisboa, and delivered a mass so close to my workplace that I couldn’t help but writing a few lines on this Holy Day.

     Riding the bus to work, an aged lady asked me to open a window for her, because the vehicle was packed. And so we engaged in friendly conversation. She was coming from seeing the Pope being received by the president of the portuguese republic  (small caps intended). And she was going to attend the mass. The mass was going to be delivered on a square that overlooks the river and a monument on the farther margin representing Jesus Christ. Think of the statue in Rio de Janeiro. Not only they’re similar, but here it was built because the Portuguese Church suffers from a minor sin: envy.* The day was perfect for such an event: pearl blue skies and lamb-like clouds, some with a touch of grey to remind us that the Evil One is always on the lookout.

      ‘And don’t you think the Pope looked like a puppet and slightly ridiculous riding the fully enclosed Papamobile?’ I asked the lady.
     ‘Well, yes. But we cannot know what‘s in other persons’ hearts. Some might want to harm him.’
     ‘Oh, but he didn’t do anything wrong, did he? Such protective measures seem to be over the top.’As the lady shrugged and gave me a meaningful and aquiescent look, I decided to proceed, but always in a friendly way, ‘And what do you think he should do about those pedophilic priests?’
     ‘He’ll probably ask for forgiveness now at the mass. We should all pray for our priests.’
     ‘But wouldn’t it be better if they were granted the possibility of getting married?’
     ‘Oh, they cannot. They are already married.’
     ‘To God?’
     ‘Yes.’
     ‘Ah, so God’s a woman?’
     ‘No, no. God’s a man.’
     ‘But that makes the priests’ marriage a homosexual one, doesn’t it?’
     Homosexual marriage is a hot topic in Portugal too these days, and the narrative ends here, for the surrounding passengers were muffling their giggles.


* Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said of Envy: “Envy according to the aspect of its object is contrary to charity, whence the soul derives its spiritual life... Charity rejoices in our neighbor's good, while envy grieves over it.” The only neighbouring Church is that of Spain, and I’ve never seen the Portuguese one rejoicing in the former’s good, that’s for sure.     

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Written in Times New Roman, written in Times New Roman.